As I was listening to Sanders read the other day he said, "I noticed a connection between three books. I noticed that each of these books is about a kid growing up and each kid has a new baby brother or sister, and they all feel jealous, but then they change and they learn to share their parents."Wow. He was finding a theme. This is not easy work for a seven-year old. Think about it. Do we as adults find themes in books easily? No way. I might find a theme in one author's books - like the tension between salvation and sin, or Salinger on middle-class pretense and listlessness - but it is just plain hard to find a theme in books by different authors like Sanders did. It's so cool to find kids doing things like this in my class. Love my job.
